


fanning the flames feeds the fire

by NyxiePie



Series: finding a family [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Found Family, Minecraft, bad being a good older brother figure to random kid he met in the nether, completely platonic ofc, no irl names used, slight angst, why the honk is bad's irl name in the tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:09:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxiePie/pseuds/NyxiePie
Summary: Badboyhalo is young, sadly used to the scary ways of the world, but not as young as the kid he meets in the Nether (and eventually starts to call a brother).
Relationships: Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap
Series: finding a family [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122812
Kudos: 88





	fanning the flames feeds the fire

The resident old™ hybrid , Badboyhalo, no longer remembers his family-- his mother and father and any chance of lost siblings, the memories are gone. Lots took pity upon him for it, but he learned not to care over time. He’s a lot older now, after all. He isn’t a human. Time passes differently for him.

Human was what he isn’t. Even with all the human characteristics he held, at the end of the day he was different. He was kind, he was caring, he could respawn, and he didn’t drop anything like a mob. He was a hybrid, for sure, but still a player.  But he’d never been exactly sure what he was. Maybe a magma cube, he’d never been too bothered by lava and he could jump pretty muffin high. Maybe an enderman, he was pitch black just like them and doesn’t like eye contact too much. But nothing ever clicked as  _ him _ . He learned not to care.

(Even if a part of him ached to learn about what he was, so that he could understand himself better. So he could make people less scared of him on first impression..)

Despite it all, he seemed to be a human magnet. They flocked to him like ducklings. It was ridiculous, half of the players seemed to despise his existence and the other half thought of him like an excitable puppy. He wasn’t sure if he liked either of those.

But the first couple “humans” he found-- he learned were more like him than he thought. It made him a little happier, a little calmer. He could trust them, even if they were human, he knew that, but the fact that he wasn’t alone made him smile just a little brighter.

\----

Bad needed blaze powder, and ghast tears. He lived alone, in a house in the overworld. And of course, in the overworld, zombies spawn at night, and they’ll attack. When they attack, you get hurt. Food and staying still and bandages can only do so much. Potions-- regen and healing especially-- help with the pain when you can’t just lay around and let monsters attack. 

Respawn is an option, an option Bad doesn’t like but one open. There are respawn runes carved into the bedframe of the bedding in his small home. It’s a good anchor, definitely.

But respawn could be painful, and sometimes, people never come back. Small chance of that ever happening-- a monster would have to sneak into your house, break your bed into a thousand pieces, and then you’d have to be stupid enough to get yourself killed-- but a chance nonetheless, one he wasn’t willing to take.

Bad was paranoid, his death count in this world was only 3. He’d had some very close calls before, but nothing too severe. At the end of the day, he was cautious enough that his farm was underground, his mine was large and his resources plenty, and he was pretty certain that he was prepared to face most if not everything the world hurls at him.

Certain enough that venturing into the Nether now wasn’t too big of a fright. He had plenty of stuff to fight with, and if things went bad, he had ender pearls he could throw at the last minute. 

So, he stepped into the Nether, diamond armor on and sword on his back and a quiver of arrows on his hip, and prepared to go back to the Fortress to find the blaze spawner and fight ghasts along the way.

It didn’t go exactly to plan.

He walked into a crimson forest, one he didn’t remember being anywhere near his portal. But he liked the wood, and the vines would look ominous draped over the door of his house, so he didn’t pay too much attention to it. Instead, Bad paid attention to the fungi growing on the red ground below him, brushing against his legs, and the alluring aroma of the plants that almost seemed to glow.

All seemed mostly normal. At least, until he heard a voice that seemed almost as captivating as the sight of the trees grown nearby. Surely, there weren’t players here? It wasn’t unusual for other people to be around these parts, however most villagers refused to go near his house, because they feared he was a danger, a menace.  But the voice, instead of being human, sounded more like wailing. Almost like a ghast’s. Half of him wondered if the “voice” was really just a mob, and he was just going crazy due to all the time he’d spent alone. The wailing… became more panicked.. He began to pick up words. 

_ Help me help me help me-- follow the path, find him, return him, keep him safe, keep him safe-- _

Bad clutched his head in pain as the voice became louder. He struggled to keep his thoughts calm. Maybe he was just imagining things? Maybe he was sick, he should probably go back home, maybe drink a potion and lie down-- But every thought of trying to cure his spur of the moment headache made it hurt worse. He could barely think straight after just a couple minutes. It took all his strength to remain standing.

His eyes glanced hurriedly in every direction until he found a trail of mushrooms. In a last ditch effort to get the ringing and the voice to shut up, he ran through the forest, straining his muscles as he followed the fungi and vines. The voice seemed to become softer the farther away he ran.

His adrenaline powered run was cut off abruptly when he tripped over his own feet and landed in the crimson dirt. He winced, now very, very aware of the soreness of his legs and the slight ache of his head. This is crazy. Was he going to die in the Nether, all alone, and lose all the stuff on him? He didn’t want that, he just wanted to be safe..--

A sigh escaped him as he managed to maneuver onto his back. Breathing heavily, he felt his eyelids become heavy, and that time, he didn’t fight it. He willingly became a victim to.. Whatever the voice was. As he lost consciousness, till the last moment, parts of him wanted to know why the wailing was so panicked.

\---

Panic definitely seemed to be a recurring theme that day.

When he woke up, surprised to not be dead after passing out in the Nether, and in a forest no less, where who-knows-what could spawn, his first thought was that he’d get up (after he managed to open his eyes, he didn’t quite yet, trying to get used to just being awake first), follow the trail back to his portal, sleep it off, and think about this more thoroughly in the morning. He thought wrong. Instead, he heard another voice, and he was considering blocking off his ears by stuffing something in them or something when he recognized that wow, this voice is a lot softer. 

“I think he’s waking up! You can go now. Thank you,” The words seemed different, and he was about to question what kind of stupid language this is when he realized with a jolt that the language being spoken was galactic. Not just any stupid language. His stupid language.

Bad finally opened his void white eyes to see a small kid, who surely couldn’t be older than 7, sat right in front of him, waiting for him to wake up. He felt a flash of guilt before he remembered this was probably just some stupid dream, or a trap, or something else. He pushed himself up using his arms as support and finds that his body definitely does not ache as much as it should. He curiously glanced down at the rest of his body to find that his clothes were ripped, but otherwise he looked unscathed.

The kid blinked, then giggled. “Hi!” He swore he could also see a second kid just moments prior, but when his eyes flickered to where he thought they were, there was no one. The kid in front of him sure did seem friendly, though. Bad paused.

“..Hi. Who’re you?” Galactic felt weird on his tongue. He hadn’t spoken it in many years. Not after he learned that lots of players didn’t like it.

The kid only shrugged. They looked around, then scooted closer to Bad and curiously laid a hand on his tail, touch much gentler than what he expected from a child. Their hands were unusually rough. “What's with the tail?” They asked in a quiet voice.

“Just something I was born with, muffinhead.” Bad found himself scooting forward too so he could ruffle the kid’s hair. They looked up at him, but did nothing to stop it. They almost seemed to enjoy it. “Where are your parents?”

Bad had worked with kids before, and he knew when parents were tricky subjects. They’d change the subject or suddenly become very, very quiet, and eye contact stopped. But the kid only stared at him for a second before responding.

“Dunno.”

“You don’t know where your parents are?” He asked, voice laced with honey. Not maliciously, never maliciously. It was just something he did subconsciously when talking to children so young. He wasn’t certain about their age, but one thing for sure was that they were way too young to be out here in the Nether, all alone.

The kid nodded. Bad hesitated. He could take the kid home with him.. He had more than enough supplies and the kid could help him harvest wheat if he really needed more food than usual. He could make small enough armor and he knew how to sew whatever clothes they wanted. But what if the kid’s parents were here somewhere? What if the kid was lying? He knew it was an unlikely chance, but he didn’t want to accidentally kidnap a random child he found in the Nether.

The Nether was dangerous though, and completely unsuited for a kid at that age. Bad would wait till a player was at least 12 to consider it in the slightest. 

(He told himself that he was a different case. He was turning 15 soon. He shouldn’t be this mature, shouldn’t be all alone in a world like this. He didn’t deserve all this grief, but he took it all in stride. He wouldn’t allow the same for them.)

He pushed himself to his feet, and gazed down at the child before reaching out his hand for them to take. “How about we get out of this forest, ‘kay, you muffin?” He took the firm grip as a yes, and was about to retrace his steps when they tugged at his sleeve, trying to pull him in the opposite direction.

“Kid, we can’t--” But they had other plans. Bad got cut off as he was forced to follow a whole different path. He didn’t dare separate their held hands. He didn’t want to lose them in this large forest.

When the kid stopped, it was in front of a tree with a hollow hole near the ground. They ducked into there for a moment, and returned with multiple items in their hands.

A compass (one that seemed to be broken), a dull knife (that Bad worriedly noticed had dark stains on the blade), and a book (It was in galactic, he wrote a mental note to translate it later when his thoughts weren’t as crowded).

What got to him was the plushie, though. It was a stuffed animal sheep, that had discolored wool-- or maybe those were singe marks? The wool was mainly white, but there were black scorches that Bad was sure were ash. It looked old, like the stuffed sheep had been used as a pillow or something to snuggle with for many years.

_ They were just a kid. Just like him. _

He kneeled down to the kid’s height. “Do you have a name?” He asked gently, grasping their hand in his. They shrugged again, almost dodging the question, and Bad became even more worried. “Well how do you feel about the name…” He trailed off, thinking of possible names for them.

He looked back at the stuffed sheep. The burned wool reminded him of an animal, and he racked his brain trying to think of the name. After a moment, it hit him.

“Pandas. How do you feel about the name Pandas?” 

Pandas smiled. It was a small grin, but Bad could tell by the way their orange eyes were glowing that he liked it. Orange eyes… He would have questioned the color of their eyes if not for the fact that now, he needed to get them out of the muffiny Nether. The bad news was, he no longer knew where he was in the Nether. He’d have to be probably… at least a couple hundred blocks away from his portal by now. Oh, this was not good.

As if sensing his panic, Pandas took out their compass and gave it to Bad. The compass was worn, the glass was cracked, and the spinner seemed broken. But then, it spun to the east, and Pandas glanced at him as if they were silently answering all the questions Bad had swimming in his mind. “..You wanna follow it?” Bad asked.

Pandas nodded.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> First MYCT fic lol! Kinda not written well, and I originally planned for this to also go into how Bad met Skeppy, the remainder of the DT, and a couple others, but I lost motivation, so only Sapnap today aha  
> I struggled a little with some words sometimes, so my apologies if some stuff doesn't make sense, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless! <3


End file.
